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George Zimmerman should have left the matter to the authorities. If he wanted to be a cop, I guess he should've tried harder to get a police job.
I might have some sort of empathy for him if he'd been in his home and Trayvon had been on his property skulking around.
But, that is not what happened.
And, if you look at how Zimmerman has conducted himself, on the record, he doesn't look so innocent.
Before AND after he murdered Trayvon Martin.
There are many variables that could change for me to see this differently... say, the addition of another person whose life was at risk that Zimmerman was attempting to protect by exiting his vehicle and confronting Martin, for example.
Or, Martin having approached Zimmerman's car and threatened him directly.
Florida is a strange place.
His neighborhood was having lots of criminal activity. When the police would arrive, they would say there was nothing that could be done since the perps weren't around. It was very reasonable for Zimmerman to watch a person he felt was acting suspiciously in order for the police to talk to him.
Not everyone feels cowering in their homes is reasonable.
Not a single piece of physical evidence or witness testimony contradicts Zimmerman's story.
Zimmerman had every right to watch Martin as he waited for the cops.
If Zimmerman's past is relevant to that night, so is Martin's.
Nothing from that night proves Zimmerman did anything wrong.
You really get it. I wish I could rep you more often.
- There had been 300+ burglaries & home invasions in that apartment complex in the prior year. They had a real crime problem.
- At a neighborhood meeting Zimmy was nominated and elected to be the neighborhood watch commander.
- Zimmy happened upon Martin while leaving to run errands, not on some vigilante patrol. He had every right to check out an unknown teenager walking through the complex in the rain, with his hoodie up.
- Martin approached Zimmy while he sat in the truck watching him. Hardly the actions of a scared little boy. In fact, it's pretty clear from Zimmy's 911 call that he was scared.
- Martin tells 911 Martin took off running. By the time Zimmy opens the car door (as heard on tape) nearly 5 seconds had elapsed. The idea of the rolly-polly Zimmerman jumping out of his truck and chasing down the 160lb 17 y/o with a five second running head start is preposterous.
- Zimmy didn't ignore the 911 operator. He was told "We don't need you to do that (follow Martin)"
and he reponded "Ok".
- You can hear on tape that Zimmy is not running, not huffing and puffing, the wind was not rustling on the speaker as he spoke to 911.
- The vast majority of those 300+ 911 calls to their apartment complex had seen the suspects get away by the time the police arrived.
- Zimmy sounded defeated on the 911 call. "These a-holes always get away" he said.
- Several more minutes go by as Zimmy waited around with 911. He does not sound like he's following or looking for anyone. The 911 call ends.
- Zimmy claims as he walked back to his truck to wait for the police that Martin jumped him. Zimmy had a broken nose, the back of his head was gashed up, there was an eyewitness & an audio tape of Zimmy screaming for his life. There is no reason to think Zimmy's story is not credible.
- The million dollar question though is: If Martin was only one block from home, with a five second running head start, how did he end up in a confrontation with Zimmy several minutes later at a different location? If Martin really was scared, why didn't he just run home? This is the part that makes no sense. The fact that he didn't indicates that he wasn't scared. It presents the possibility that maybe he ran, then went back to jump Zimmy because he was mad, just as Zimmy claimed. Then when you factor in the fact that Martin enjoyed fighting and appeared to be a bit of a bully (see his facebook posts about the kid who he'd fought previously, but had lost & didn't want to fight again) it becomes plausible.
- Zimmy got jumped. He was on his back, in the dark, in the rain, with a broken nose, blood rolling down the back of his throat and Martin smashed his head into the concrete repeatedly. He thought he was going to die, so he shot and killed Martin. Not guilty.
- None of this makes Zimmy a hero. He's a *******. A bully. A loser. A coward. There are things he could have done differently. If he had any balls at all, he would have rolled the window down and said "Excuse me, I'm the neighborhood watch commander & we've had some issues with burglaries recently, do you live here in this complex?". He should have stayed in the truck. However, none of this makes him a predator, a murderer or anything of the sort. Just a wanna be tough guy, who ran into a real tough guy & shot when he thought he was going to die.
Since there has been some publicity around the shooting recently, given that the 5 year anniversary was a couple days ago, it got me thinking - that incident was really the beginning of the end for the left. Instead of fighting against climate change, wealth inequality, the war on drugs, and things that most rational people could get on board with, the left (and I consider myself on the left) took a turn towards identity politics with incredibly divisive incidents that were sloppily reported on to create a narrative - a narrative that there's an epidemic of black people being murdered by white people and police officers.
This narrative is and was false when looking at the larger picture and statistics. It was driven purely by anecdotes. And yet anybody who pointed this out was called a racist, on the wrong side of history, etc. This identity politic/blm/social justice way of looking at the world does not stand up to critical thought. And so smart, skeptical people found themselves supposedly on the "wrong side of history." I myself was called a right winger for pointing these things out. And to me, this made it clear that the left was in trouble. I don't think it's a coincidence that Trump is now president...anyone agree?
I am a African-American that certainly doesn't agree with you. We African-American did not believe that tens of thousands of white folks were killing African-American folks. Ours problem was that African-American ""Unarmed Men"" were being shot down by police and some white males.
George Zimmerman should have left the matter to the authorities. If he wanted to be a cop, I guess he should've tried harder to get a police job.
I might have some sort of empathy for him if he'd been in his home and Trayvon had been on his property skulking around.
But, that is not what happened.
And, if you look at how Zimmerman has conducted himself, on the record, he doesn't look so innocent.
Before AND after he murdered Trayvon Martin.
There are many variables that could change for me to see this differently... say, the addition of another person whose life was at risk that Zimmerman was attempting to protect by exiting his vehicle and confronting Martin, for example.
Or, Martin having approached Zimmerman's car and threatened him directly.
Florida is a strange place.
- He was voted neighborhood watch commander. If the elected neighborhood watch commander is not allowed to check out an unknown teenager walking through the complex in the dark, in the rain, with a hoodie on, then what is the point of having a neighborhood watch commander?
- It's hard to have this conversation if you're going to lie and use the word "murder". He kkilled Martin, he didn't murder him.
- He didn't confront Martin. Martin, with his five second running head start, was long gone by the time Zimmy got out of his truck. The 911 operator suggested he not follow Martin and he stopped. You can hear this on the audio tape. It's very clear. He continues to speak calmly with the 911 operator for several minutes. He was clearly not involved in a confrontation or hot pursuit during this time.
- Several minutes later the confrontation happened. You have two options here 1) After hanging up with 911, Zimmy searched out & found Martin, or 2) after Zimmy hung up with 911, Martin found Zimmy. Here's what doesn't make sense in either scenario: Why, if Martin was just a scared little boy, with a five second running head start, Zimmy not chasing him & his house being only a block away, why didn't he run home to safety? Why was he out ten minutes later if he was scared, putting himself in a position to be involved in this confrontation? It really calls into question the "Taryvon was scared" argument & makes the "Trayvon was pissed, so he went back to get Zimmy" argument seem the more plausible of the two. Add in Zimmy's injuries, the eyewitness and audio tapes and there's just no reasonable way to determine Zimmy murdered Trayvon. It's still sad, it's just not murder.
Fact: The Ku Klux Klan was originally and primarily an arm of the Southern Democratic Party. Its mission was to terrorize freed slaves and "ni**er-loving" (their words) Republicans who sympathized with them.
Fact: During the Civil War era, the "Radical Republicans" were given that name because they wanted to not only end slavery but also to endow the freed slaves with full citizenship, equality, and rights.
Fact: The 14th Amendment, giving full citizenship to freed slaves, passed in 1868 with 94% Republican support and 0% Democrat support in congress. The 15th Amendment, giving freed slaves the right to vote, passed in 1870 with 100% Republican support and 0% Democrat support in congress.
Fact: Contrary to popular misconception, the parties never "switched" on racism. The Democrats just switched from overt racism to a subversive strategy of getting blacks as dependent as possible on government to secure their votes. At the same time, they began a cynical smear campaign to label anyone who opposes their devious strategy as greedy racists.
True and everything that you just mentioned is all facts ""All Republicans were liberals"" until the 1960s at that time they ""All became Conservatives"".
True and everything that you just mentioned is all facts ""All Republicans were liberals"" until the 1960s at that time they ""All became Conservatives"".
Sorry, but that mythical party swap is a fairytale told to make Democrats feel better. They can't stand the fact that their party was the party of slavery and Jim Crow.
I am a African-American that certainly doesn't agree with you. We African-American did not believe that tens of thousands of white folks were killing African-American folks. Ours problem was that African-American ""Unarmed Men"" were being shot down by police and some white males.
Well here's my take as a white male who "doesn't get it," and I don't say that sarcastically, I'm sure there are plenty of things I don't understand. But I can explain how it looks from my perspective and, likely, many other white people's. Correct me where I'm wrong, but it seems to me that much of this is confirmation bias. We have cherry picked cases of black people getting shot by the police, while leaving out white people. And so when people think of police shootings, they think of police shooting black people. Yes, the % of black people shot is higher than the % of the population. But when you adjust for the violent crime rate (which can't be dismissed as white supremacist, because it is actually predictive of the number of police encounters) , the police actually appear to shoot more white people. And there are a couple of studies that confirm this. And none to the contrary.
That's not to say that there aren't any problems or that racism is over because we have a black president. I'm not one of the people who thinks that anyway. But clearly something doesn't add up as far as police shootings go. Add to this the false narratives like Mike Brown, will get me told I'm a racist by most of the blm crowd, for pointing out the facts about it. Some of the cases do look like murder, like Walter Scott. But the divisiveness of other cases, like the Mike Brown case, spoil the bunch. The truth is that many of the famous cases are obviously and/or arguably justified. And then there are countless similar cases of white people being shot in similar circumstances that nobody gives a rat's ass about. Ok, I'm ranting, but ask yourself this question: do you know anybody who's been shot by the police? Or know anybody who knows anybody? Or is your perception of this based off the media?
Just look up the crime statistics, there's a wikipedia page devoted to it with links to plenty of sources. There simply isn't an epidemic of white on black violence. If you consider that a white supremacist talking point, then I don't know what to tell you.
You share the same underlying beliefs as Dylann Roof as you both see Treyvon Martin's murder as a 'tipping point'.
Both point to the 'false black-on-white crime statistics' combined with the murder of a 17 year old boy as somehow setting a precedent where folks who sounded like supremacists got offended by being identified, or called out as being supremacist?
Calling someone a supremacist or a racist is apparently a worse crime than being one?
You wanna continue to sound & act like a supremacist, but draw the line & get offended at being called one?
'Man up' & own it, especially now when it's been re-branded, normalized, legitimized. Y'even got one of your own in the White House as De facto President. Steve Bannon re-made 'Breitbart' in his own image & now he's intent on accomplishing the same in the WH.
Simply changing the names of racial supremacist identity groups to ones that are more palatable changes nothing.
This guy calls himself Alt-Right:
Quote:
Q: What is your Redpilling story?
A: I'd say Trayvon Martin was the tipping point. As a denizen of Shekel Island ...
To the OP: another tipping point for the Liberals was the student protests at the University of Missouri a few years ago. That's where I was introduced with terms like "safe spaces" and professors calling for the beating of a student. It really opened up the eyes of a lot of moderates in the middle of the country (MI, OH, and Wisky) that the Democratic party is going down the wrong path.
It helped usher in Trump who stood up to this social justice nonsense.
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